Clark Lindsey asked an engineer experienced in building reusable spaceships for his take on Elon Musk’s proposal to make Falcon 9 reusable. The answer is fascinating.
Elon Musk’s talk yesterday at the National Press Club revealed several interesting things, about SpaceX’s rocket effort, about the state of the American commercial space industry, and about Elon Musk himself.
First, the company’s rocket design effort. Musk centered his talk on SpaceX’s new effort to make its Falcon 9 rocket completely reusable. Though he produced little specific details, and the moderator at the event asked no questions about it, it seems the engineering centers around these three concepts:
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This is not good if true: SpaceX has admitted that in its December 2010 test flight of Falcon 9 there was a problem with its first stage.
During the August meeting, held at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, SpaceX told to the two advisory bodies that there had been an engine anomaly during the most recent Falcon 9 launch, according Charles Daniel, a shuttle and space station safety expert at Herndon, Va.-based Valador Inc., and a member of the ISS Advisory Committee. “There was no explanation or root cause analysis or corrective action for this particular anomaly,” Daniel said Sept. 9 during the public meeting. “This is a relatively troublesome statement not to recognize that a premature engine shutdown was a significant event.”
Rocket shortage: NASA is reconsidering the Delta 2 rocket as a vehicle to launch its unmanned science satellites.
Chris Bergin at NASAspaceflight.com today wrote a report on the four companies NASA is subsidizing to build manned capsules. The status of each company tells us something of whether they can eventually provide the United States with a replacement for the shuttle, and do it soon. Let’s take a look at each.
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The planning dates have been set for the first Dragon cargo mission to ISS.
SpaceX gets another launch contract for its Falcon 9.
NASA management appears ready to approve combining SpaceX’s next two test flights of the Dragon capsule and Falcon 9 rocket into one test flight. This despite Russian opposition.
Elon Musk defends his vision and success. Key quote:
For the first time in more than three decades, America last year began taking back international market-share in commercial satellite launch. This remarkable turn-around was sparked by a small investment NASA made in SpaceX in 2006 as part of the Commercial Orbital Transportation Services (COTS) program. A unique public-private partnership, COTS has proven that under the right conditions, a properly incentivized contractor — even an all-American one — can develop extremely complex systems on rapid timelines and a fixed-price basis, significantly beating historical industry-standard costs.
China has the fastest growing economy in the world. But the American free enterprise system, which allows anyone with a better mouse-trap to compete, is what will ensure that the United States remains the world’s greatest superpower of innovation.
To put it simply, Musk is right, on all counts.
The competition plays hardball: The Russians say “Nyet” to letting SpaceX’s Dragon capsule dock with ISS on its next flight.
Competition! China finds SpaceX’s launch prices low — and a challenge to meet.
Declining to speak for attribution, the Chinese officials say they find the published prices on the SpaceX website very low for the services offered, and concede they could not match them with the Long March series of launch vehicles even if it were possible for them to launch satellites with U.S. components in them.
SpaceX unveils its plan for the Falcon 9 Heavy, what would be the world’s most powerful private rocket.
The new rocket will be able to carry about 117,000 pounds (53,000 kilograms) of cargo to orbit – about twice the payload-carrying capability of the space shuttle. The Falcon Heavy would launch more than twice as much weight as the Delta 4 heavy, currently the most powerful rocket in operation. Only NASA’s Saturn 5 moon rocket, which last launched in 1973, could carry more cargo to orbit, SpaceX officials said.
Musk said the rocket should lower the launch cost of cargo to about $1,000 per pound, about one-tenth the cost per pound on NASA shuttle launches.
More competition! SpaceX has inked a deal to launch its first geosynchronous communications satellite.
